


and it's surely to their credit

by papyrocrat



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:42:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papyrocrat/pseuds/papyrocrat





	and it's surely to their credit

He spares a moment to become awash with the novelty of it – Laura, waiting for him at home. He’s never had that; always avoided that too-green cage where being an officer meant nothing, no matter how hard he tried.

This is different; novel. He can go home and be himself.

Maybe it’s not the worst thing possible, that the world is upside-down.

“They’re officers. They wear the uniform.”

“So did Boomer.”            

He pauses. “Tyrol. I believed in Tyrol four years ago –“

“-four years ago when he was helping the Cylon avoid detection?”

“He didn’t know.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“We make an oath.”

“I vaguely remember something along the lines of an oath myself. My word means so much less than the Cylon’s?”

She lets the moment sit.

“This alliance is tearing even us apart, Bill. Imagine what it’s doing to the fleet. We have to give the people something. At least explain. These are extraordinary circumstances, even for our extraordinary situation.”

“We can’t make rigid distinctions about Cylon and human anymore.”

“You can say that because of Tigh.”

“Saul is a good man.”

“He didn’t have _you_ shot at over coffee just two years ago.”

Another thing that’s shifted. He’s never had to consider defending Saul Tigh; no matter how much the man might need it, Laura is the first person since Ellen to even consider slandering the Admiral’s best friend.

“Ancient history. You want to drag that up?”

“You don’t think the press is? You don’t think the revelation that the Gideon tragedy was actually a Cylon attack perpetrated by the military has any traction? You don’t think maybe the people have a point?”

“I’m not going to discuss this anymore.”

“You’re not the one that has to discuss it.” She rolls her pills between her hands. This is the enemy, right here in his room, and he is powerless.

She looks after the fleet, and more and more, he looks after her. “We can’t make these rigid distinctions, Cylons bad, humans good.”

She snorts. “We can still make some pretty good guesses about Cylons, though.”

“Still, there’s a gray area. Baltar’s human.”

“Oh, well, if they have the dependability and moral compass of Gaius Baltar, we should definitely trust them.”

“So then what do you think we should do?”

She looks back at him for a moment, inscrutable except for some slight disappointment. “Do you really think it matters?”

This woman, he hardly knows her; he cannot imagine a world without her. He will leave this talk for another day. “You think they can’t be sold on it?”

“I think I’m the last person right now who should try.”

And just like that, she’s gone, focused only on the alien thing inside her, and he can’t fight the cancer and he won’t bicker with the quorum and the alliance will burrow into the fleet until it destroys them all.

He should check in at the comm one more time.

He pulls off his pins, and relief and victory and something like joy flits across her face, for the first time since their dreams collapsed.

He entrusts the ship to Tigh. Just for the night.


End file.
